Upgrade

by Richard Parry

  Sadie brought a hand down against the strings, her other hand letting fingers skip against fingerboard. The crowd surged against the stage as the steady beat of the Seattle sound mixed with air. The room grew heavy, the people grinding against each other, jerking and dancing with the beat. She forgot about Aldo, about Bernie and his cut, about how she was going to make rent. For a little while, the strings under her fingers were all that mattered, and she sang alongside her guitar until her voice grew hoarse.

  Then she stopped, the crowd stumbling against the fallen beat. Sadie breathed in and out into the microphone, her pulse pounding. “Heh.” Her voice echoed back to her from the back of the room. “Sorry. I’m just, you know. Tired.” She glanced to the side and saw Bernie in the wings, a scowl blooming on his face. A grin caught against her teeth.

  “So.” Sadie turned back to the crowd — my people. “Do you think I should stop?”

  NO. The roar washed over her, and she closed her eyes in the face of it.

  “Ah hah.” Her fingers touched the guitar again, the sound dancing around the stage. The crowd hushed for her. “Well. Is anyone going to at least buy a lady a drink?”

  Some hero in the crowd raised his bottle up towards the stage. More followed, the press of bodies almost urgent. She held a hand up. “Thanks. Just pop it on the edge.” The hero put his drink on the lip of the stage. “What’s your name?”

  “Mark,” said the hero.

  Sadie smiled at him over the sound of the guitar. “No shit. Mark.” She stepped forward, grabbing the bottle from the edge, the glass sweating against her hand. She lifted, tilting it towards Mark, then tipped it back. The beer was cool and clean, and she finished the bottle in a moment, tossing the empty to the side of the stage. “Thanks. Mark. Someone buy Mark a drink!”

  There was some cheering and a subtle shift in direction as people moved to the bar. She glanced at Bernie. His scowl was struggling to hold. People buying liquor always increased profits, especially in a place like this.

  Sadie moved back, plucking at the strings again. She’d lied. She never felt tired when she played.

  ⚔ ⚛ ⚔

  Sadie shuffled through the wad of dirty paper, counting the notes. “Where’s the rest?”

  Bernie shrugged at her. “That’s it. That’s your cut.”

  “Bullshit.” Sadie kicked off her boots and sent them tumbling across the room into a wall. “They were on fire, Bernie. They bought beer. And a cover charge.”

  He shrugged again, his belly rising and falling with it. “What can I say. It’s hard, you know? Cash, it’s a rare thing. If only you had an uplink, you could see for yourself. Check the books.” A smile worked across his face, but found it foreign territory and left. “You think I’m trying to cheat you? You’re my star! C’mon.”

  Uplinked — hell with that. The thought came quick, almost instinct. “I think you’d cheat your mother if you thought you could get away with it. And I don’t want shit in my head. Gets in the way of the music.”

  “The band doesn’t think so.” Bernie nodded at the door. “They’re happy digital. You’re the one with an ancient guitar.”

  “That ancient guitar gives the sound that pulls people in. Besides, you’re confusing the issue.” Sadie waved the wad of money. “I can’t even pay for parking with this.”

  “You don’t have a car.”

  “It’s because you pay shit. What if I just moved on?”

  Bernie tipped his head sideways. “I dunno, Sadie. Where you going to find someone who lets you play without a link? It’s borderline illegal. I look the other way. You know,” and he tried that smile again, “because you’re like a daughter to me.”

  “You make passes at all your daughters?” Her eyes drifted to his gut, then back to his face. “I think you let me play because I fill your bar every night. I think you only bought a new car after I started here.”

  “It’s a Toyota-Mitsu.”

  “It’s a Lexus.” Sadie pushed the chair back in front of the mirror, straddling it backwards. “It’s not a Mercedes because it’d get stolen around here.”

  “Whatever.” Bernie waved a hand at her. “So, leave. Or stay. I don’t care. Just be on time tomorrow.” He pulled the door open and walked out into the corridor, almost colliding with Aldo. “Christ. Aldo. Talk some sense into your woman.” He shouldered past and out.

  “She’s not… Never mind.” Aldo looked after Bernie, then looked at Sadie. “You ok?”

  “Great. Just great.” Sadie held up the money. “Here, take it. Give it to the guys.”

  “You grabbed your cut?” Aldo looked at the cash, not taking it. “It’s — shit.”

  “Yeah, I took my cut.” Sadie held the money up again. “Go buy something nice. Like a beer.”

  “Beer’s free. About the only thing that is, here.”

  “Then get a hair cut.” Sadie looked him up and down. “Just take it and go.”

  Aldo reached forward, his hand almost touching her shoulder. It hovered there a moment. She felt herself want to lean towards it. It’ll be ok. Go on. She held herself still, daring Aldo to touch her, to show her something. To be a man.

  Instead, his hand dropped and he took the cash. “Right. See you.” He stepped out the door and was gone.

  Sadie looked at the door, then kicked it closed. She brushed the tear from her eye, a streak of black left behind from her makeup. That’s why I don’t love you anymore, Aldo Vast. It’s because you’re an asshole.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Her eyes snapped open. She stared unblinking, the soft, warm fingers of the sun reaching in through the open window frame to touch her face. Laia reached out a hand, slow and lazy with sleep, cutting the sunbeam with her fingers.

  So that’s what it feels like.

  Then her hand pulled back to the collar at her neck, the hard edges of the metal chafing against her skin. There might be sun, strange and wondrous, but the collar held her thoughts, reminded her that —

  There was a scream, and she scrambled up from the pallet, moving to the open window. It looked out over a courtyard still damp from the rain. The old stones were turning from dark to light grey in patches as the water dried, walking to the sky on legs of early morning mist.

  Laia's eyes were drawn to the slave in the courtyard. It was a woman, eyes turned to the sky, hand held up against the burnished orange of their faded sun. The slave in the courtyard had tears running down her cheeks, her face pulled wild with fear. Once mighty, Abinal hadn't seen the sun in more years than Laia had been alive, the clouds and rain always constant.

  To fear the sun. No, sister.

  One of the house guards strode through a doorway opposite Laia, his feet taking him quick and sure to the slave woman in the courtyard. He didn’t slow as he slammed his fist into her stomach, dropping the her to the ground. “The Master has no time for your mewling. I will not warn you again.”

  The woman turned her face up to him. She raised a hand at the dawn. “But — How did I get here? Who are you? Where—”

  The house guard’s sword left its scabbard, the blade glinting in the light as he held it high. He brought it down, the motion quick and sure, and the woman’s head bounced against the old stones. The rock drank at the red as the house guard turned, walking back towards the doorway he’d entered through.

  Laia’s fingers touched her collar again. The slave woman’s body lay cooling in the early morning. The collar might remind her that she was also a slave, but she wasn’t ordinary. She wasn’t to be kept mindless, a Seeker — or worse. She was still Laia.

  She looked at the terrible dawn, and felt hope.

  ⚔ ⚛ ⚔

  The Master led her through the city, the stones under her bare feet rough. Laia couldn’t remember the last time she’d walked this way dry, the water usually pooling on the street evaporating under a sky turning yellow and angry.

  Her skin felt hot. She almost smiled, caught herself in time.

  It didn’t matter, the Mast
er turning to her. She almost ran into him, he’d stopped so quickly. He reached a gloved finger out to touch the line of her jaw. “You think there’s room for hope.” The Master’s voice was deep and rich. It was a voice that could have belonged to a savior or a king. There was no room for saviors or kings anymore.

  “No, Master.”

  “And you think this means you can lie to me.” The keffiyeh hid everything but the cruel eyes. He pulled his finger away. “I wouldn’t have thought you’d have forgotten the pain so soon.”

  Laia felt something touch her mind, and she swallowed. “No, Master. I mean… I haven’t forgotten, Master.”

  “You’re wondering why you can see the sky.” He wasn’t watching her anymore, having turned to look at a Seeker pen by the road. It was a small one, perhaps twenty or thirty men and women in there. Laia caught sight of a small face. Children, too.

  The Seekers were trying to get out, their normally white eyes clear. Clear, but confused — they didn’t know where they were. Who they were with. But they suspected why they were there, and that gave them the strength of fear.

  They were pushing against the wooden poles of the cage, trying for freedom. Laia licked her lips. “I do wonder, Master.”

  “Hm?” Her Master turned away from the cage for a moment, looking at her.

  “I wonder why I can see the sky.” Laia couldn’t let her eyes be drawn to the cage. If there was just a moment where they could break free —

  “It is because I sent the demon away,” he said. “I sent it to the dessert. I sent it to find your precious angel.” The corners of the Master’s eyes crinkled with a smile.

  No. “The angel—” Laia bit her lip.

  “The angel will be my slave, just as you are.” The Master’s eyes hardened. “You will remember your place, or—”

  Some of the poles on the front of the cage splintered, and the Master spun back around to the men and women — and children. The first broke free, turning to pull wood aside for the others.

  The Master tossed a glance at Laia, then strode across the street towards the cage. He beckoned over his shoulder, and she felt the pull in her mind, the metal collar heavy at her neck. No.

  “Yes,” said the Master. He turned again to look at her. “Did you think I couldn’t see your thoughts? Your plan to distract me, to let these ones escape..? This is why your city fell. You don’t understand true power.”

  “Please—”

  The Master spun away. The first of the escapees ran at him, a man with desperate eyes brandishing a broken pole as a weapon. The Master held his hand up, almost caressing the air, and the man stumbled to a halt. “I will show you true power, girl. A reminder.”

  The man with the pole turned, then ran back to the others. He hefted the pole, slamming it into a woman’s head. She crumpled. Another man grabbed for the pole, trying to wrestle it free —

  Now, said the Master’s voice in her mind. Now, reach out with your gift.

  She couldn’t help herself. There was a channel made of pain in her mind, her thoughts guided down a single path of action, like a river to the sea. Laia tried to fight, the pain a searing heat. She fell to her knees, and —

  The bodies were warm, wet. That man was just over thirty summers old, the shape of his body thin and weak as the work of a Seeker stripped him bare. The woman at his side was younger, her body remembering the harshness of last winter even if her mind didn’t. She was tarnished, broken, fragile. There, a child of just six, and she could feel the scars on his back as she reached out, and —

  The first man screamed, clawing at his clothes. The first wisps of smoke curled out from under the dirty rag he wore as a shirt. The woman at his side tried to run away, then stumbled to the ground as her skin caught alight, fingers of red fire reaching through black smoke to the sky.

  Through it all, her gift sang bright, the collar’s hold on her mind unlocked. The Seekers’ bodies burned just as bright, their bodies curling as they charred on the dry streets.

  “That, child, is power.” The Master laughed. “Do not forget it. My demon isn’t here to hold the Seekers in thrall, but you are here. I have more than enough to make you do what I wish, and fear of you will hold them as still as any demon.”

  Laia looked at her hands against the stones, saw she’d thrown up. She wiped her mouth, the collar clamping down against her mind once more. If she could just get free, could just —

  “No, girl. You will never be free. You are mine.” The Master curled his hand into a fist. The pain ran through Laia, and she screamed, her back arching as she clawed at the street.

  It went on, and on, and —

  ⚔ ⚛ ⚔

  Zacharies looked at her, his eyes bright. “Did he—”

  Laia lowered her face. “It is nothing, brother.”

  “I will—”

  “No,” she said. She softened her voice. “No. Not today.”

  “If not today, then when?” Zacharies scratched under his collar. He leaned close, as if whispering would hide his thoughts. “The demon is gone. It holds no one in thrall anymore. His power is—”

  “His power is stronger than ever,” she said. “He made me—” She stopped.

  She looked up, saw the understanding in her brother’s eyes. “I’m sorry, sister.”

  “We should go.” Laia looked around the dirty room, no more than a closet, where Zacharies was kept. There were no windows. Being the Master’s favorite at least let her see the sky through open window frames.

  “We should stay,” he said.

  “The Master said the angel is dead.”

  “The demon is dead.” Zacharies crossed his arms over his chest. “The angel has killed it.”

  “I do not think so,” said Laia. “It is not what the prophecy says.”

  “To the hells with the prophecy,” said Zacharies. “The control of the Seekers is gone. The rain has lifted. There is no water to carry the message. If that’s not the work of your angel—”

  “He is not my angel.”

  “Then whose angel is he? You’re the only one who believes.”

  “No,” said Laia. “The Master believes.”

  “The Master torments you, sister.” Zacharies ran a hand through hair dirty and thin with neglect. “He torments us all.”

  “Yes,” she said. “But he also believes. And he believes the demon lives still.”

  “Then where is it?”

  “That is why we’re going.” Laia looked at him. “We have no choice, and…”

  “And what?”

  She leaned closer to him. “And if the angel is there, we will be free. Together. Free.”

  Zacharies nodded, then breathed out, as if he was preparing to lift something heavy. “Ok.”

  “Ok,” she said, and spared him a crooked, sad smile. She reached a hand out to his, and pulled him out into an Abinal baked warm and golden by an old sun.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “I don’t know why you don’t go to the address.” Carter sounded distant. “Now you’ve got one.”

  “You set the mission up, Carter. I’m just following through.” Mason coughed into the rain, wiping his face. “I’m curious.”

  “Curiosity isn’t a useful quality for you, Mason.”

  Mason smiled, feeling the water on his face. “Why’s that?”

  “Cats getting killed. You’ve heard of that?”

  “What I want to know,” said Mason, “is why a bartender at a shitty dive knew what you didn’t.”

  “How’s that?” Carter sounded more alert, a harder edge to her voice.

  “He said that the rain was for sale.”

  “He had a head injury.”

  “And here I am,” said Mason, “at the place where you said an Apsel energy signature was detected. An unauthorized reactor site.”

  “It makes sense,” said Carter. “Someone’s trying to sell our shit. You’re trying to find out who. And I sent you to the place where one of our reactors was used.”

 
“What doesn’t make sense,” said Mason, turning to look around the ruins around him, “is why a bartender said the rain was for sale. The rain, Carter. Not a reactor.”

  “I see your point,” she said, “but I still think getting to the buyer is a higher priority. The reactor site can wait now — it’s not going anywhere.”

  “Won’t take a minute.” Mason shrugged. “Whatever — I’ve got to get out of the rain.”

  “You’re still within safe tolerance.”

  “That’s easy for you to say. You’re sitting pretty behind a desk.” Mason worked a hand through his hair, looking at the strands that stuck to his palm. “You see this? Does this look like safe tolerance?”

  “It looks like a day in the chair. Relax.” Carter paused for a second. “Maybe two days. Besides, you’re going to die of cancer first, remember? And he’s a bartender, Mason. He’s not the FBI.”

  “People in my profession don’t get to die of cancer.” Mason looked up at the building, the windows dark and empty. A few stray shards of glass stuck to frames here and there, but the paint was long gone. The low building was an extravagance of an older world, barely touching the sky at five stories high. Mason thought he saw a face at a window, but it shimmered and was gone. “Look, screw the bartender, ok? You work your way, I work mine. He’s one of my people.”

  “You don’t have people, Mason.” Carter snorted. “You’ve got an expense account.”

  “I think I’m getting symptoms.”

  “Like what?” Carter’s voice had turned serious.

  “Check the feed. Was there a girl up in that window?”

  Carter was quiet for a moment. “No.”

  “Right.” Mason coughed again. “Definitely symptoms.” He brought up a tactical overlay in the top corner of his vision, set it to playback the optics’ feed.